I'm all for clever localization but please don't just leave out important story.

I guess this is directed mainly towards the EN scripting team, but if anyone from the community team reads this it would be really appreciated if it were passed on to them.

In general, I have liked the localization work done for FFXIV, and in general it's a fun to read script and things like everyone speaking pirate in Limsa are really fun. However up until this particular patch 2.5, in general the EN and JP scripts have not deviated very dramatically besides embellishments meant to add color.

Until now.

With addition of Midgardsormr, the decision has apparently been made for EN language players to not get very important plot points which are left in the more verbose JP script. Midgardsormr says a lot of things to the player in the JP script which are entirely absent in the EN script. They are completely omitted, and in many cases the apparent intent of what is being said is totally different too.

You can see a straightforward translation of the JP Midgardsormr here:
http://www.reddit.com/r/ffxiv/commen...ersus_english/

He's actually not trolling the player in JP, and he's actually not Anonymous. In fact what he says and does is incredibly straightforward if you read a direct translation of what the JP script says. You can listen to what he says yourself by switching to the JP audio track if you don't believe the people who have translated the JP script.

Please, don't be like this and purposely change things for no reason. Adding amusing embellishments is one thing. Completely deleting important plot points and even completely changing the apparent intent of what is shaping up to be an important story character is another and is not a good idea at all.

Also the community will continue to translate and compare wildly deviating scripts so it's pointless to pretend this didn't happen. They've been doing stuff like this since the days of really bad anime dub scripts which completely change what the characters were originally saying, you can't fool the community and you shouldn't try to. Please improve your efforts at maintaining consistency between the scripts in different languages going forward.

Read Fernelhawe's post in the Lore forum on the language of Dragons. All will be made clear then. If you still feel like they shouldn't have made any changes, then I honestly don't know what to say to you, aside from "Learn Japanese and switch to JP voices". As Ferne explained, absolutely nothing is actually left out, he just condensed what Midgarsormr was saying based on rules he'd come up with for how Dragons talk long before even 1.0 launched, so this isn't the localization team "Completely deleting entire plot points", nor are they changing the intent of what's being said.

tl;dr, go read Fernelhawe's post and stop claiming we're being left out of important plot info just because we don't speak japanese.

Didn't they also do something like this for one of the quests (Greatest Story Never Told or something), and more notoriously...some of the S rank spawn triggers like Garlot?

And even with the dev post, there's still the difference of interpreting Misgardsomr as a character, as well as what he thinks of the player character/Ishgard. EN he practically chastizes you for essentially freeloading Hyladyen's blessing, or doing what you've done without really a second thought (questioning if you were a pawn or not).

JP puts it that he's not convinced that you're truly capable, since you are in the end, a human and capable of sins as the Ishgardians have done (especially since you have gone lengths to forge an alliance with them and slew Svara twenty times over for EXP...)

This was anticipated by SE and Fernwahles made this post before the patch even released.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...=1#post2723536

But after reading his reasoning in my opinion he has it backwards. His reasoning is that since dragons live really long lives that they would be more succinct and compact more meaning into single words. But I think it would be the opposite. Live as long as dragons do I think it would make them really verbose and long winded when it comes to speaking. I mean they live so long it's not like they are in a hurry to say what they have to say.

Ferne posted their reasons to change it here:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...to-Dragonspeak

Not that i agree, i even made a thread about this, but every time someone complains about the localization, they seem to post something in the lore section or a special section in the live letter or fan fest to put the community against the complainers, in other words, our feedback on this topic is wasted, they will keep doing what they want because they like to be too "imaginative" with the localization work, which is again localization, not translation nor NARRATIVE, just an adaptation of the original text to make it sound good, but not cooler or different.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DarkStar

Read Fernelhawe's post in the Lore forum on the language of Dragons. All will be made clear then. If you still feel like they shouldn't have made any changes, then I honestly don't know what to say to you, aside from "Learn Japanese and switch to JP voices". As Ferne explained, absolutely nothing is actually left out, he just condensed what Midgarsormr was saying based on rules he'd come up with for how Dragons talk long before even 1.0 launched, so this isn't the localization team "Completely deleting entire plot points", nor are they changing the intent of what's being said.

tl;dr, go read Fernelhawe's post and stop claiming we're being left out of important plot info just because we don't speak japanese.

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I read his post and I don't agree simply because the EN script purposely obfuscates or omits things which should be pretty obvious. It's not at all obvious that Midgardsormr isn't an enemy. He doesn't bother to mention that he removed your Blessing of Light because you're being tested. He literally tells you he's going to kill you in one line which is entirely different in JP. He forgets to tell you that he's pals with Hydaelyn and not trying to kill you right after. The entire conversation sounds like he's toying with you because he's the big dragon and you're a tiny mortal, because the entirety of concept of the humans committing grave sins is completely omitted and so the idea that you're being tested is left out and it's just the big dragon trolling you. No, the script is a bad one and you should find a better white knight argument than 'hurr durr just learn japanese you weeaboo' because it has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

I read that Reddit post and the ONLY thing that I did not get from the english version was point 2 saying the Ishgardians will make another mistake and 3 mentioning the shadows. Everything else I understood from paying attention... of course I DID read Ferne's post BEFORE I got to that part of the story, so I may have been prepared to read between the lines more.

Ferne has stated before that there are differences between the texts because of cultural reasons, and it's not so much a Translation as it is Localization as there is different logics behind taking different routes - even the choice of a different type of voice actor (ie a young boy character being voiced by a male instead of female) or a different speed of reading a line changes a lot, and can make something more relatable to a different language. The differences are executive decisions based on the interpretation of the Lore, but all of the game is being built and developed in 4 languages simultaneously, they want to make it appeal to their native speakers.

I don't know the englisch text, but in the german text it was clear that Midgardsormr put you onto a test to prove yourself without the help of Hydalin's gift, and that he is a buddy to Hydalin in some way.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Illya

Until now.

With addition of Midgardsormr, the decision has apparently been made for EN language players to not get very important plot points which are left in the more verbose JP script. Midgardsormr says a lot of things to the player in the JP script which are entirely absent in the EN script. They are completely omitted, and in many cases the apparent intent of what is being said is totally different too.

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I had 0 issue with understanding exactly what was being inferred by Midgardsormr. No plot point was actually missed out but it wasn't directly obvious.

And here's the real issue. It requires that a person understands inference and subtlety. The dragons have been designed, in the EN lore, to be incredibly clever and succinct in their speech (even when it has been translated from dragonspeak into Eorzean english). Without trying to sound a little condescending, it requires a bit of intelligence and understanding on part of the reader. If a person isn't particularly skilled in the language department it can be harder for them to draw out the inferred meanings to 'get the conversation that occurred between Midgardsormr and the player.

But there isn't an issue in the localisation. Localisation doesn't only mean "translate (sometimes directly) from one language to another". It's actually the process of translating the context, too. This is why Google Translate fails miserably at translations; it doesn't understand most contexts.

This is probably going to mean that a number of players may not understand the story in Heavensward, too.

But the plot points are not being simply left out. They are being included in a very particular way that is unique to the dragons, in order to portray the dragons as being highly intelligent beings and not just a common beastman.

middy did say he was with hydolyn because he said he was in a covenant (or contract, cannot remember which word) with her, using fwern's post, it makes more sense to think of this one word with multiple meanings, as to "testing us" he made that intent very clear when he asked 'is it you who choses your path, or do you follow your master. i wish to see what you will do now." that is the intent of a test to see what will happen,

i feel for the differences in the descriptive wordings (with JP having a lot more then english) as well as translating it into a grammatical context that doesnt excist, (aka dragon) it gives it a more ancient flow that only requires a slight amount of time to be thought upon for its true meaning,

when it comes to heavensward, i doubt people will be confused because the number 1 rule of story is to show and not tell. so if they find the translations do not make to much sense they can explain by what we see.